MICHAEL KEATING. Trump’s Economic Policies: Part 2 of 2

In Part 1 of this series of two articles, yesterday I examined the impact of President Trump’s economic program on the American economy. Today’s article discusses the impact of the Trump economic program on the rest of the world, and Australia in particular. The key danger is that Trump will further encourage a rise in protectionism, that will damage the foundations of the open economy that in the last seventy years has delivered the biggest rise in living standards in human history. However, continuing economic growth inevitably involves economic transformation, and maintaining support for the open economy will depend upon programs that better assist workers to adapt to structural adjustment pressures, from whatever source.

In the almost ten years since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) economic recovery in the advanced economies has been very sluggish. This slow growth and the stagnation or even fall in household incomes has encouraged the rise of economic nationalism, as can be seen in the British vote for Brexit and the rise of mostly right-wing nationalist parties elsewhere in Europe. One response has been a rise in protectionism. During the last several years, the number of trade-limiting measures implemented by the G20 countries has more than quadrupled, while for the first time since World War II, the share of world trade to global GDP has been falling. Thus, the open global trading system was under some threat, even before Trump arrived on the scene.

Trump’s basic contention is that if a country’s exports to the US are growing faster than the US exports to that country, then that is proof that the US is being unfairly discriminated against. As I discussed in yesterday’s article this view is based on a fallacy. It fails to take account of the fact that we live in a multilateral trading system, and that the difference between a country’s total exports and its imports is determined by the difference between that country’s domestic savings and investment. This identity between a country’s trade gap and its savings gap is maintained by the real exchange rate changing as necessary, and we can expect the real exchange rate to rise in any country that seeks to introduce protectionist measures against its trading partners. This would of course nullify the objective of those protectionist measures, but there would be a lot of disruption and misallocation of resources. Indeed, this was exactly the experience during the Great Depression.

Nevertheless, one of Trump’s first acts after becoming President was to abrogate the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement, which of itself sent a bad signal to the world. In addition, Trump has now insisted that NAFTA be re-negotiated, so as to be less favourable to the other two signatories – Canada and Mexico. And while Trump’s threats of a penal tariff on Chinese manufactured imports have been toned down for now, in the hope of gaining Chinese support against the military threat posed by North Korea, those threatened tariff increases have not been taken off the table.

In what follows, I will draw on the work I cited yesterday by the Productivity Commission and McKibbin and Stoeckel to model the likely outcomes for the rest of the world if the US does increase its tariffs[i]. Two scenarios are presented. The first scenario assumes a 40 per cent increase in US tariffs on Chinese manufactured imports, but there is no response by any other countries. The second scenario assumes that each country imposes an extra 10 per cent tariff on imports from all other countries.

Interestingly a unilateral 40 per cent increase in US tariffs on Chinese manufactured goods, which provokes no further reaction, does not lead to any significant improvement in the US trade balance; principally because the imports from China are mainly replaced by (more expensive) imports from other countries. The effect on China though is significant with investment reduced by 1½ per cent relative to its baseline, which then leads to a drop in GDP relative to its baseline. The Chinese trade balance is however unaffected because the reduction in Chinese investment leads to more capital outflow than otherwise, and China’s real exchange rate then depreciates by 5 per cent below its baseline. In contrast, Mexico would be much more affected if the US introduced a 35 per cent tariff on Mexican imports as threatened. As much as 80 per cent of Mexican exports go to the US, and this 35 per cent tariff increase is projected to lower Mexican economic activity by about 10 per cent.

This picture changes dramatically for the worse if there were a trade war as depicted in scenario 2. When all countries raise tariffs, the modelling suggests that all countries then lose: in the year following the tariff increase, the US GDP is 1.3 per cent below its baseline; and the loss of output in Australia is similar; while Germany, China, and most of Asia, all have their real output lowered by three times or more the loss in the US and Australia. The biggest part of this loss comes from countries’ own actions, as investment declines in response to higher import prices and there are lower returns to capital as the price of capital goods increases relatively.

A key conclusion, which is reinforced by the modelling, is that it is the increase in a country’s own tariffs which causes most damage to its economy. Indeed, Australia recognised this almost thirty years ago, when it embarked on unilateral tariff cuts without seeking reciprocity. Obviously it should be in everyone’s interest to avoid a trade war – including the US. However, if the worst comes to the worst, and Trump does initiate a trade war, it would still be in Australia’s interests not to join in and retaliate.

Instead, in that case, the Productivity Commission suggests that Australia should seek to be part of a coalition of ‘like-minded’ countries that could agree to resist protectionist measures. The participants in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership – including Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, India, New Zealand, and the ASEAN countries – could possibly form the basis of such a grouping. If these countries did no more than maintain their tariffs at current levels, the negative effect of higher protection elsewhere on Australia’s income would be largely offset, and further liberalisation of tariffs by this group of countries could increase economic activity in Australia by about 2.5 per cent – or about a year’s economic growth.

The conclusion is that it is critical to maintain support for free markets. But this support is more likely to be forthcoming if:

Trade agreements are even-handed and rules-based

Consultation processes are further improved

More attention is given to the distribution of the benefits from trade and to the uneven costs of adjustment, and

Australia’s training and other programs to facilitate adjustment are adequately funded, which is not the case at present.

While Australia should do better, it might also be noted that Australia’s handling of structural adjustment pressures has been much superior to American performance. Indeed, a comparative analysis of the impact of globalisation on the US and Australian economies has shown that while both economies were about equally exposed to globalisation pressures, unemployment rose much more in the US in response to globalisation[ii]. Thus, instead of blaming foreigners and resorting to protection, President Trump should really be seeking to improve America’s training and other programs that would allow America to better adapt to the inevitable changes from both new technology as well as from globalisation.

“But this support (for free markets) is more likely to be forthcoming if:

– Trade agreements avoided any loss of national sovereignty, and thus precludes any form of investor state dispute settlements
– that trade agreements are written by public servants, with a view to the common wealth, from trade perspectives, not by Foreign Affairs departments, and not by multi-national corporate lawyers
– that any trade agreement includes specific regimes to capture real tax contributions related to economic activity in each country, without recourse to the BS loans schemes from parent companies, without exorbitant ‘licensing’ cost write-offs, without access to farm out dollars to the Cayman Islands, without makeshift Head Offices located in Singapore or Ireland which are actually an office the size of a backyard with a few computer servers in them, and all the other rampant tax manoeuvres that are basically de-funding national budgets.

“While Australia should do better, it might also be noted that Australia’s handling of structural adjustment pressures has been much superior to American performance. ” And this is where the problem arises with all trade measures. While the above statement may be true at the aggregate, policy level, it doesn’t gel with “received wisdom” (so to speak) on the ground, particularly from those who lost or are losing jobs as a result of structural adjustment (car industry, anyone?). We may have done better than the US but we’ve still not allocated nearly enough resources (or indeed sympathy), particularly to a demographic unlikely to ever work again. But dole bludgers get demonised regularly.

And where does all this “free trading” lead? “Cheaper stuff “ seems to be the goal in sight for the Productivity Commission, all the Liberals and most of Labor. In Free Trade Heaven those of us still with large incomes will buy new TVs every year. We’ll zoom about in the safest of shiny Beemers . and on weekends, relax by crunching up some countryside with our Hummer Integrated Outdoor Adventure Vehicles . We’ll shop online for the newest clothes and sparkles and be so happy because stuff will be SO cheap that every now and then we can just leave it all on the nature strip for the recyclers or poor people, thus avoiding clutter

The problem, surely , apart from massive waste and inequality , is that free trade is leading to a world in which larger and larger corporations are in control of people’s lives. Economies of scale mean that a large manufacturing facility has an economic life of perhaps 7 years. No sooner has a plant opened than its owners and financiers are planning the next- playing off governments for better infrastructure, more compliant labour and more concessions Follow the country to country hopscotch of footwear makers in Asia for ready examples.

More canny national governments support the interests of their nominally national super corporations , which is at least an attempt at self-interest. Here in Australia though, successive governments just chant “Free trade is great trade” , happy for that the latter-day mirrors, trinkets and decade distant beef deals are a good swap for killing off jobs and national wealth .

Comments are closed.

Search for:

Subscribe to our weekly and daily Pearls and Irritations newsletter!

Please leave this field empty

First name

Last name

Email *

Which newsletter? Daily Weekly

To confirm you must click on the link in the email we've just sent you. Please check your junk mail folder if you can't find it. Thank you, John.